I'm excited to spotlight a sophomore novel by one of my fellow 2010 debut authors, Blythe Woolston. If you haven't had an opportunity to read her first novel, THE FREAK OBSERVER, it is a stunningly-well-written book that makes you think. And I'm not the only one who thinks so--it won the 2010 William C. Morris Award for a debut novel. I haven't had a chance to get my hands on her next one yet, CATCH AND RELEASE, but from the description, it sounds equally intense and thought-provoking.
Summary from GoodReads:
I should have died quick. But I didn't. I'm a miracle of modern medicine, only the medicine doesn't get much credit, I notice. People say I'm lucky, or I'm blessed, and then they turn away.
I'm not the only miracle. There's Odd too.
Polly Furnas had The Plan for the future. Get married to Bridger Morgan, for one. College, career, babies. Etc. All the important choices were made.
It was all happily-ever-after as a diamond-ring commercial.
But The Plan did not include a lethal drug-resistant infection. It did not include “some more reconstruction and scar revision in the future." And it certainly did not include Odd Estes, a trip to Portland in an ancient Cadillac to "tear Bridger a new one," fly fishing, marshmallows, Crisco, or a loaded gun.
But plans change. Stories get revised and new choices must be made.
Polly and Odd have choices: Survival or not. Catch or release.
From Publishers Weekly:
"When 18-year-old Polly reflects on the idea that what doesn’t kill one
makes one stronger, she’s not thinking about herself. She’s referring to
a local staph outbreak that killed five people and maimed two,
including Polly. “It ate my eye and part of my cheekbone. It left behind
a mess of bumpy pink scars that twists the corner of my mouth up on one
side like I’m a half-finished Joker.”... Morris Award–winner Woolston (The Freak Observer) forces readers to
re-evaluate life’s random cruelties and the idea of “survival,” as she
brings her characters to the brink of death, then tosses them back in
the water. Ages 14–up."
Blythe Woolston is the author of The Freak Observer, a story
of theoretical physics and real grief set in rural Montana. She only
started writing books because she was desperate for something to read.
That desperation and the magic formula for YA--"It's not
bestiality"--set the Rube Goldberg literary machine in motion. She is
gainfully employed as an indexer of academic nonfiction; it is a
vocation which both pays for socks and keeps a steady stream of pages
moving through her hands.
If you want to treat yourself to the next installment of Blythe Woolston's brilliance, you can get a copy of CATCH AND RELEASE through
Amazon,
Barnes & Noble, or ask for it at your local independent retailer.
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